A Homily for the Fifth Sunday after
Trinity
“They forsook all and followed him.”
Two weeks ago, the Gospel lesson gave us the opportunity to consider the image of the shepherd. Today’s Gospel brings to mind the image of the fisherman. Both images involve active seeking: the shepherd actively sought the one sheep who was lost, the fisherman casts his net to bring in his catch of fish.
Two weeks ago, the image that represented us human beings was a sheep; this week we are represented by fish. And, again, the image is not flattering: fish are even dumber than sheep. But, again, the image is one we share with the Lord Jesus. Just as the Lamb of God is a symbol of Jesus, so in the early Church, the fish was often a symbol for Jesus, and the Greek word for fish (ichthus) is an acrostic for the phrase, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.”
Today’s Gospel lesson is not about Peter’s first meeting with Jesus. That
happened about a year earlier, when Peter’s brother Andrew, a follower of John
the Baptist and the first-called of the Twelve, told Peter that he had found
the Messiah. When Jesus came to preach in
Peter and Andrew and John were present at Jesus’s
baptism by John in the River Jordan; they may have been present at the wedding
feast in
When the crowd gathered around Jesus at the lakeshore, he did not choose
Peter’s boat at random to be his pulpit. Jesus knew Peter, and he it was
not an accident that he taught the crowd from Peter’s boat.
When the crowd went away, Jesus said to Peter: “Let’s go fishing.”
Peter knew that this was crazy. Peter was the fisherman, here; Jesus was
a carpenter and a rabbi, what did he know about fishing.?
Peter and his partners had been fishing all night without catching anything,
and, besides that, they had just finished cleaning and stowing their fishing
nets. Nevertheless, Peter said “at thy word”—if you say so, Jesus—“I will
let down the net.”
And what do you know? They caught some fish. They caught a lot of
fish. They caught so many fish that they strained their nets to the
breaking point and nearly sank two boats. Who was this Jesus, any
way? Even the forces of nature obeyed him.
And poor Peter: boy, is he confused! He
falls down at Jesus’s knees in worship, and at the
same time he tells him to go away! Peter has known Jesus, off and on, for
a year or so; but this is different, he feels himself in the divine presence
and is simultaneously overwhelmed by a sense of awe and a sense of his own
sinfulness. He is feeling what Moses felt before the burning bush and
what Isaiah felt just before the coal touched his lips.
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” That’s what Jesus said
to them according to Mark and Matthew. And they—that is
Peter and his brother Andrew, and his partners James and John—dropped
everything and followed him. They didn’t just drop their nets, they didn’t just drop the marvelous draft of fishes,
that they could have sold for a pretty penny to the fish processors at Magdala, just down the coast. They dropped
everything.
Did they know what was happening? Could they know? There is a poem,
by the twentieth century writer William Percy, that
tries to capture the change that took place that day. You may know the
poem; it is in the Hymnal (#437).
They cast their nets in
such happy, simple fisherfolk, / before
the Lord came down.
Contented, peaceful fishermen, / before
they ever knew
the peace of God that filled their hearts / brimful, and broke them too.
Those happy, simple, peaceful, contented fishermen dropped everything, just because Jesus said so. And what did they get for it? James was beheaded in Jerusalem, by order of King Herod, becoming the first of the Twelve to die a martyr’s death; Andrew was crucified at Patra, in Greece, tied to his cross and lingering for two days before he died.
Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, / homeless in
Patmos died.
Peter, who hauled the teeming net, / head down was
crucified.
Would
they have followed if they had known?
Jesus said to his disciples: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you; not as the world gives, give I unto you.
But he also said: I have come to bring not peace but a sword. As
William Percy wrote:
The peace of God, it is no peace, / but strife closed in
the sod.
Yet brothers pray for but one thing, / the marvelous peace of God.
One of the remarkable things about today’s Gospel lesson is that Peter and
James and John didn’t bargain with Jesus. They did not ask what was
in it for them--at least not at first--and so he did not have to tell them
about scorn and ridicule, about exile from their homeland, about prison, about
early, violent death. They didn’t ask, he didn’t tell; they dropped
everything and followed him.
Later on, of course, when James and John went to Jesus to ask a favor of him,
he asked them: can you be baptized with the baptism with which I shall be
baptized? Can you drink the cup that I shall drink? Guess what, you
are going to be baptized with my baptism, and you are going to drink my cup,
and still there’s nothing in it for you except that paradoxical peace of God.
In the New Testament lesson at Morning Prayer today, Jesus gets a somewhat
different response. A rich young man came to Jesus and asked, “What must
I do?” Obey the Ten Commandments, Jesus told him. “Oh, that.
I already do all that.” Okay, then, give away all your money and follow
me. And the rich young man went away sad. He was unwilling to drop
everything. He was sad because his love for what he had in this world kept
him from following Jesus.
Jesus said that anyone who loves this world—even who loves his parents or
children—even who loves his own life--more than Jesus, cannot be a
disciple. Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy
of me. If anyone wants to be a disciple, let him renounce himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me.
At some point, each of us has had an encounter with Jesus, and he has said,
“Follow me.” Like Peter, we simultaneously feel the divine presence and
also our own unworthiness. Can we, like Peter, drop everything and
follow? Looking back from our twenty-first century perspective, we know what
following Jesus required of Peter and Andrew and James and John; but we cannot
know what it will mean for us.
We may not have the opportunity, like James, and Andrew, and Peter, to die as
martyrs for the faith. The Lord knows that there are a lot of people in
this twenty-first century who do have that opportunity in Red China, in the Sudan,
in Cuba, in Indonesia. Our witness is (so far) of a different kind.
So what should we
do? How should we live, as followers of Jesus? That same Peter,
shortly before his own martyrdom, wrote to his fellow Christians about how they
should live their lives as witnesses for Jesus:
This is what you are called to do:
Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceit;
Turn from evil, and do good;
Seek peace, and follow after it;
Sanctify the Lord Christ in your heart;
Be ready to answer those who ask the reason for your hope,
but answer them with kindness and respect;
And, before everything else: show brotherly love.
Corona